I noticed today that I do this:
www.youtube.com/watch
:(
My kick is definitely already done by the time I need to breathe, so my arms need to push down to get my head out of the water, wasting precious energy that would better be used to push forward. All this up-and-down means I have died at the end of nearly every 200 butterfly I've ever done.
How do I fix it?
I noticed today that I do this:
www.youtube.com/watch
:(
My kick is definitely already done by the time I need to breathe, so my arms need to push down to get my head out of the water, wasting precious energy that would better be used to push forward. All this up-and-down means I have died at the end of nearly every 200 butterfly I've ever done.
How do I fix it?
You should be kicking at a constant and regular rhythm regardless of how you're breathing. In the above video there is a noticeable pause between every other kick, and there shouldn't be. Watch the greatest ever: http://youtu.be/3lmCEjE0if0 In that video from her 100 to her 125, you can see that her kick rate is pretty much constant.
Yeah. It's hard to tell with no underwater view, but it looks like her arms exit right about the time her kick finishes. I realize that's what I should be going for - but how to teach myself to do it? I start that second kick a lot earlier, pretty much right after the catch. So by the time the pull is done, my legs are pretty much dragging.
I remember once (once) I managed a late kick on a one-arm fly drill and was surprised at how smooth it felt. Like my arm just floated over the water all by itself. Of course, I never replicated it. I suppose that's my answer ;)
Yeah. It's hard to tell with no underwater view, but it looks like her arms exit right about the time her kick finishes. I realize that's what I should be going for - but how to teach myself to do it? I start that second kick a lot earlier, pretty much right after the catch. So by the time the pull is done, my legs are pretty much dragging.
I remember once (once) I managed a late kick on a one-arm fly drill and was surprised at how smooth it felt. Like my arm just floated over the water all by itself. Of course, I never replicated it. I suppose that's my answer ;)
Yeah, I think a one-arm fly drill is a good way to practice this.
So the kick maintains a steady tempo? Like: kick - KICK - kick - KICK - kick - KICK, and you kick your arms "out" with one, and kick them "in" with the other? Yeah, the tempo should be constant. Lots of flyers vary their intensity from one kick to the next.
I really need to get some underwater video of myself. That would help a lot. Or convince my wife to move somewhere closer to a team with a coach.
So I attempted to focus on it today... I can do the steady tempo pretty easily. However, from that perspective, my arms are going too slow. It feels like my kick finishes when my hands are right about halfway through the pull. Whereas the noob in this video:
www.vxv.com/.../michael-phelps-butterfly-underwater.html
... finishes his kick right about the time his hands exit. Kicking them out of the water, as they say. It actually looks like he starts that kick pretty close to his catch - which is about how I do it (or at least how it feels to me). So maybe my "second" kick is too small, or I'm taking too much time getting my arms into position?
If you look at most of those swimmers, their kick rythm is farily even and the problem lies in the front end of their stroke. The arms enter too close together, in many cases, the arms dip down and then back up to the surface, then into the keyhole of the stroke. All this takes too much time. By the time they get to into the catch, it falls out of timing with the second kick. Arms need to go in at or just outside the shoulders, high elbow early catch and pull. They need to catch up to the kick. After the pull, they need to release pretty early unless you kick and recover like phelps.
Yeah, I think a one-arm fly drill is a good way to practice this.As long as you are actually doing a one-arm fly drill and not a one-arm free drill with a dolphin kick. If you rotate your shoulders or breathe to the side during the drill, you are probably doing a freestyle arm recovery (one-arm free drill); not fly.
As long as you are actually doing a one-arm fly drill and not a one-arm free drill with a dolphin kick. If you rotate your shoulders or breathe to the side during the drill, you are probably doing a freestyle arm recovery (one-arm free drill); not fly.
Yeah, I probably do that too. I do the one-arm drill primarily to work on keeping my arms low over the water, but I do breathe to the side, and I would not be surprised if an outside observer saw significant rotation. I'm going to work on it today and really try to focus on delaying that second kick until the pull is almost complete. If I can get that down, then I'll try not to rotate. I can't imagine one-arm fly without breathing to the side, though... that sounds tricky. I'm going to be an optimist and assume that if I have the kick in the right place, then the breath will come naturally :D
You should be kicking at a constant and regular rhythm regardless of how you're breathing. So the kick maintains a steady tempo? Like: kick - KICK - kick - KICK - kick - KICK, and you kick your arms "out" with one, and kick them "in" with the other?
As long as you are actually doing a one-arm fly drill and not a one-arm free drill with a dolphin kick. If you rotate your shoulders or breathe to the side during the drill, you are probably doing a freestyle arm recovery (one-arm free drill); not fly.
This is exactly my problem with this. Do you know a good way to check myself on this?
